An accelerometer tied to a touchscreen. Why not, right? Seems like a logical progression after we saw this tiny tot of a netbook hacked to serve as a stylus-driven tablet.

It's no Courier, certainly, but as far as cheap, functional touchscreen tablets go, it's not half bad.

Update: Apologies to the creator, Brian, who wrote us with the original link for this post. I've since updated with the correct link, so go check it out! - j.l. [My Dell Mini Forums via Gadget Mix]

Apple and Lenovo generally include the sensors as data protection tools: using readings from an inbuilt accelerometer, a laptop can recognize when it's in freefall, and spin down, or even cushion, its hard drive to try to minimize platter death. It works, sometimes! But on a hardware level, these accelerometers are just like the ones in your cellphone, meaning they can track orientation finely enough to play simple physics games, which you'll evidently be able to do in the next version of Firefox:

Originally built as something that we would include for our upcoming mobile browser release, we've made it available on desktop systems as well. Many modern Macbooks and Thinkpads contain devices and drivers that expose this information. We've added support for Linux, Macs and some Thinkpads where drivers and devices are available.

So it was an afterthought for Firefox proper, and you'll have to code special games and sites for it, and it'll only work on a few major laptop models. It's not exactly The Future of Firefox, but it's a cool trick nonetheless.

You can try the feature out yourself if you want; just download a nightly Firefox build from here, and try a few of these test pages. (Not safe for seasick types.) [Mozilla via DeepTech]

The patent outlines how an accelerometer-equipped device could monitor users' movements, and over time, build usage patterns out of the collected data. After it's created a user profile, it can then be configured to activate applications on your phone. I can't think of a single use for this.

The problem is, it presupposes a perfect routine. I don't really want a phone that automatically starts playing music every time I run for three seconds, or that opens up three browser tabs the second my train starts moving, or that goes to silent mode every time I sit down, because most of the time, even if the phone could guess what I'm doing—a claim I'm leery of, even when augmented by GPS and time patterns—most of the time I wouldn't want it to do anything at all.

That's not to say that the concept of adaptive, location-aware cellphone behavior is entirely ridiculous, but when it's implemented like this, it is. [Unwired View]

Lee-Sean Huang attached the accelerometer to the top of the headband, and fed its data readings into the visual audio programming platform Max/MSP to control the sound output based on where your head is at, so to speak. But unlike the horribly bad mushroom trip that you could not escape from after listening to Massive Attack, all it takes to change things up—in this case, shifting in and out between various synth samples to make a live mix—is to bob your head. It's not for switching tracks on your iPod, think of it as more of a crossfader that works not just in one dimension (left and right) but in 3D space, blending various elements of a track in real time.

Accelerometers are in everything, so adding them to consumer headphones would be the easy part. Coming up with a novel way to utilize the sensor readings to change the sound, now that's the trick. I told Lee-Sean he should hook up the guy from the Boredoms with a pair—I think he'd love them.

To try to build one yourself, Lee-Sean's Max/MSP source code is available on his site. [ITP Winter 2008]

Just to let you all know what you're not going to be getting for Christmas, there's a 3.3-inch AMOLED touchscreen built into this thing, capable of 16 million colors. A 500 MHz CPU tops off the remainder of the features, as well as T-DMB, Bluetooth and even an electronic dictionary app! Oh, and that's all on top of a 40-hour charge and an accelerometer too. No price.
[OLED-Info, Thanks Ron!]

Milpitas, CA, September 24, 2008 – Movea, Inc., the leader in motion-sensing technology for business communications, home entertainment and mobile computing, today announced the retail availability of its new Gyration Air Mouse with MotionSense technology. The compact, wireless mouse was created with the mobile professional in mind, and is designed to work in the air or on a flat surface like a desktop.

Movea’s MotionSense technology provides precise in-air motion tracking, so users can control the mouse cursor intuitively and with ease, whether delivering a PowerPoint™ presentation or watching online videos. Precision motion sensors guarantee faithful responses to natural hand movements whether in the boardroom, the living room or a cramped space, such as a seat on an airplane or train. A simple flick of the wrist will command presentations, enhanced with Movea’s GyroTools™ presentation effects, or control multimedia entertainment on a laptop, allowing users to change the volume or skip a song on iTunes™, or flip a TV channel on Slingbox™.

Weighing less than four ounces, the Air Mouse is compact enough to fit in a messenger bag, briefcase or purse, and versatile enough to be integrated with a PC or laptop from wherever a user wants to work or enjoy digital entertainment. With a sleek, ergonomic design, the Air Mouse works very comfortably for left- or right-handed consumers.

“The market for notebooks is transforming, as more people are buying them equipped with wide screens and media features, and using them not only for traditional business applications but also for entertainment access,” said Greg Smith, Vice President for Marketing at Movea Inc. “The Air-Mouse was designed with such people in mind, providing mobile workers and entertainment buffs the freedom to control their PCs whether they’re at home or on the road.”

Using a proprietary radio frequency (RF) technology, the in-air controls are effective up to 100 feet and work through walls. The Air Mouse includes a laser sensor for precise desktop tracking, making it ideal for working at a desk or other flat surface. The RF USB dongle stores conveniently inside the mouse, which ships with an elegant travel case and, due to its small size, easily packs into the smallest of handbags.

The device will be available for purchase in early October with a suggested North America retail price of $99.99. For more information on this and the family of Gyration motion-sensing products, visit www.gyration.com.

The pants are equipped with multiple e-TAGs—sensor packages that include accelerometers, gyroscopes, and a microcontroller to send their information to a PC via the Bluetooth module mounted on the waist. Piezoelectric pads also monitor weight distribution at the heel, and the whole thing runs on a single 9-volt battery. The data is then analyzed to spot potential problems early and treat them. The VT researchers hope to bring the tech to a commercial product in a few years. But until then, I'm seeing this as a pretty good guideline for DIY mo-cap loungewear. [Physorg]

If you've played Super Monkey Ball, you know that the EA folks are right when they told us the iPhone devs still have a ways to go before they can tease statistically accurate data out of the acceleromters for precision control of a game. The same problem unfortunately applies to A-Level. Right now, every reasonably level surface in my house is registering around -2 degrees off-center when a measurement is taken in landscape mode. When you tilt the phone straight up to measure with the bottom, the orientation of the accelerometers shifts, and the inaccuracies EA was talking about become apparent as it swings to the opposite side of the spectrum—around +6 degrees off-center.

A simple re-zero button will help this app immensely—allowing you to take quick comparative readings that aren't as susceptible to error. The developer, Posimotion, says this is on the way—but until then, hold on to your old, non-virtual level.

UPDATE: As many of you have noticed, one of the iPhone SDK demo apps is a similar moving-bubble level. While that doesn't preclude someone from releasing what is in itself a potentially useful app (I just used it tonight while moving some furniture around, actually), charging the 99 cents is indeed a little galling.

[iTunes Store via Gadget Lab; Giz's iPhone App Review Marathon]

If you've got a MacBook, iBook or Powerbook made after 2005, you too can join the effort to tell people about quakes after it already happened, or maybe even act as a warning system. "Even just a few seconds of warning may be enough time for people to take cover and automated systems could slow trains and divert traffic from vulnerable bridges." And if you think that your constant table bumping from your activities at your computer will trigger The Big One over at EarthquakeHQ, "the Quake Catcher Network's software will analyze shakes sensed by a computer's accelerometer and report only big movements to the central server, ignoring the vibrations from a passing truck, a bump to a table, or even a minor earthquake." [Stanford via Technology Review]